Best Practices For Grief: Death and Divorce

Previously, this series explored the grief experiences of children and teens impacted by parental deployment. This series continues with the focus shifting to the impacts of death and divorce on youth today.

Below is the third video in our video series highlighting best practices for educators, teachers, and other key players in the lives of grieving youth today. For this interview, I sat down with Roxanne Storms, Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and Fellow in Thanatology with the Association of Death Education and Counseling. Storms offers best practices for working with children and teens impacted by the death of a loved one and/or parental divorce. Storm’s caring and passion for this population of youth is evident in the way she carries her message.

In this video Storms addresses the importance of understanding that when children and teens grieve and as they age, they will re-experience grief at different developmental stages and as adults, we need to acknowledge that grief every time.

Storms reminds us not to assume that one grief experience is more impactful than another and to not compare them. Storms also reminds us to “be aware,” as life will never be the same as it was for a child or teen impacted by death and/or divorce.

Are there grief experiences of children and teens you don’t think are getting enough attention? Please leave a comment below or email me at amlee@sisgigroup.org.I also encourage you to join our ongoing conversation by using the hashtag #Grief5. Together we can begin to create more awareness of the impacts of grief and loss on youth today and best practices to better serve this population of “invisible grievers”.